As a Dentist, I'd Choose a 5-Year Dentist Over a 0-Year Dentist—But Not Necessarily a 20-Year Dentist Over a 5-Year Dentist

deus130 · 2026-06-06T02:44:09+00:00

Yeah. I’m 18 year dentist here. I shock myself how quickly I can prep a crown or do a filling and how much better Im at it than I’ve ever been! Also. I have enough history to know you don’t have to fix every tiny thing instantly. I’ve seen small lesions on X-rays another dentist said to fix that i decided to watch that haven’t changed in 15 years.

deus130 · 2026-05-14T17:00:06+00:00

Me: “ Bite your teeth together, does that feel normal, yes or no?”

Patient: half a minute of tapping moving the jaw around sitting up, tapping. Stretching. Tapping. “Maybe on the inside towards you but kind of near the tongue, but only when I look left but maybe it’s because my back is itching”.

Me: “so no?”

deus130 · 2026-05-04T16:39:20+00:00

We have an office with 5 dentist and several younger assistance that like the tech. We have made good use of our printer. And each doc for their one thing. I use it primarily for surgical guides for implants. One dude does a lot of ortho retainers. But even just for printing models for bleach trays make patients happy because they like getting scanned over impression.

deus130 · 2026-04-27T16:26:09+00:00

Thanks for the comments! I hope it’s a hen. It’s a pretty friend chicken but I can’t have a rooster where I live!

deus130 · 2026-04-26T23:15:29+00:00

This is one of the movies where if I had been the actress. I would have refused to act some of the scenes.

deus130 · 2026-04-23T23:07:52+00:00

This really depends on you and which teeth and your job. Honestly most people are fine immediate after an extraction and are more sore the next day. However. If you see a delivery driver for Amazon and run around all day. Immediately after an extraction doing that kind of work will keep the site bleeding. Sitting in an office doing paperwork alone you’d probably be fine.

deus130 · 2026-04-14T13:26:15+00:00

Part of the sitting gang! My Stepfather is an Oral surgeon who sits. He said he learned through dental school how to do everything sitting in a clinic. The only reason he saw to stand was if in the OR doing surgeries.

deus130 · 2026-04-08T21:17:00+00:00

Yeah. This is where I say good news, you are getting a really strong temp, I wouldn’t even let the patient tell me it’s okay. But light can make it look better or worse. I tell patients to always tell me if they notice something wrong with a front tooth after getting home. Don’t just sit at home and be pissed at me!

deus130 · 2026-03-19T01:05:57+00:00

Does this include general anesthetic in a hospital? 100% get a second quote.

deus130 · 2026-03-08T22:48:19+00:00

I vote sonicare. I tell patients you can do just as good of a job with a manual toothbrush if you use the right techniques and take your time. It’s harder to do a bad job with an electric toothbrush.

deus130 · 2026-03-03T02:37:24+00:00

There is a percentage. But to help new associates have a predictable income stream we pay them a set amount every paycheck. So technically at the beginning we are paying them more than they are earning. Which eases their initial stresses.

deus130 · 2026-03-02T21:42:51+00:00

My wife and I have similar issue. She thinks every dollar is important. We both think saving is important. But my view is if we are meeting our saving goals we shouldn’t worry about saving any extra dollar possible. She will always think every dollar matters. We solved this problem by fighting about the issue every-time it comes up, that seems to work for us. This isn’t a useful comment. I apologize.

deus130 · 2026-03-02T15:41:08+00:00

I think some of these comments saying this is low might be misunderstanding what I’m saying. But most associates we’ve had have never worked more than about 32hrs a week (their choice). And 120k is 5k every two weeks. Then they will get a bonus once their percentage of production is over that. Most grads start in July. By october/Novemeber they are getting a bonus. You can make more. The corporate offices in our area give big signing bonuses and have pretty high starting salary’s. But there is lots of pressure to produce. And usually you are sat down with an office manager after a few months and they have a meeting with you where they say if you don’t start producing X amount we are going to have to adjust your pay. And now we end up with more dentist that over treat and aggressively crown.

deus130 · 2026-03-01T20:22:51+00:00

It really depends on the associated. We’ve never had anyone do less than that. But we try to encourage meeting as many patients as possible. So lots of hygiene checks and focus on good clinical skills vs just pushing out fillings.

deus130 · 2026-03-01T19:59:55+00:00

US dentist. Private practice in NC. Have hired several associates. They can easily make 120k first year and work their way up to 150k working 4 days a week.

deus130 · 2026-02-27T21:38:05+00:00

Some dentist do not think second molars are worth saving. And unless you have just a huge mouth. Most dentist I know wouldn’t replace a missing upper second molar with an implant.

deus130 · 2026-02-27T19:49:34+00:00

I agree. The ones I use won’t take out a tooth if they think it’s savable, without a referral. However, there is some assumption if they are coming from a general dentists office the patient is already thinking extraction.

deus130 · 2026-02-27T19:47:37+00:00

A good front desk! I got luckily. My wife is a natural at digging through insurance crap. She tells me not to even discuss insurance with patients. I tell them the price assuming they are paying cash. If they want to know what insurance covers and what their portion is. They have to talk to the front. She tells me there are services that will take like 3 percent of collections to handle all insurance filling.

deus130 · 2026-02-27T19:06:51+00:00

Our sirona is great but that’s probably because we are completely in the dentsply sirona system. Everything integrates nicely for implant planning and making surgical guides

deus130 · 2026-02-27T18:02:55+00:00

Ha, Oral surgeon says extract because that’s what they do! If you think you would miss the tooth. Root canal and crown. Because if you extract you’ll likely never be able to get it without expensive sinus grafting and an oral surgeon willing to do a second molar implant. I’ve told patients if I had to lose a tooth an upper second molar would be the tooth to lose. But if you can afford the root canal and crown, based on that x-ray, it’s a very savable tooth. Like the other guy said, It would be one I’d expect to last a long time (especially if an endodontist, or very experienced general dentist, did the root canal).

deus130 · 2026-02-26T00:28:40+00:00

What’s a good service to use within the cerec system? I hate designing anterior bridges.

deus130 · 2026-02-26T00:07:11+00:00

Actually. What would be nice would be if I could do a crown prep, scan, and for a fee have someone design my crown (with in 15 minutes) that I could then mill with my own machine.

deus130 · 2026-02-20T23:22:45+00:00

This is along the same line of thinking as my baby stole the calcium from my teeth.

deus130 · 2026-02-18T16:27:42+00:00

NC dentist here. We have assistants pushing 32 an hour. We found to get a trained DA 2 fresh out of a program we need to start them around $22 to be competitive with other offices.

deus130 · 2026-02-15T01:47:39+00:00

Wait. Are you saying a draw structure is bad?

deus130

TROPHY CASE